Former Washington Post editor Len Downie sounds a warning to the American press: “I say up front, openly and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in September in an attack on NBC News. “The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country.” What could Trump do to the news media and their ability to inform the American people? Judging by what he did in his first term, plenty. As president, he habitually attacked the news media and individual journalists as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” undermining public trust in the fact-finding press. The irony of him saying that when we now have testimony under oath that he was personally involved in manufacturing dirt on his opponents in collusion with the owner of the National Enquirer is too thick to slice. He literally concocted fake news about Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton. And the first two are enthusiastically endorsing him for president. Anyway, Downie goes on to lay out all the ways in which trump assaulted the free press during his term and it is lengthy, from his endless verbal abuse to attempting to use the DOJ to punish media companies he believed were politically hostile to him. And he contrasts that with the Biden…